Between Symbolism and Realism
The Use of Symbolic and Non-Symbolic Language in Ancient Jewish Apocalypses 333-63 B.C.E.
by Bennie Reynolds
Bennie H. Reynolds analyzes of the language (poetics) of ancient Jewish historical apocalypses. He investigates how the dramatis personae, i.e., deities, angels/demons, and humans are described in the Book of Daniel (chapters 2, 7, 8, and 10-12) the Animal Apocalypse (1 Enoch 85-90), 4QFourKingdoms(a-b) ar, the Book of the Words of Noah (1QapGen 5 29-18?), the Apocryphon of Jeremiah C, and 4QPseudo-Daniel(a-b) ar. The primary methodologies for this study are linguistic- and motif-historical analysis and the theoretical framework is informed by a wide range of ancient and modern thinkers including Artemidorus of Daldis, Ferdinand de Saussure, Charles Peirce, Leo Oppenheim, Claude Levi-Strauss, and Umberto Eco. The most basic contention of this study is that the data now available from the Dead Sea Scrolls significantly alter how one should conceive of the genre apocalypse in the Hellenistic Period. This basic contention is borne out by five primary conclusions. For example, while some apocalypses employ symbolic language to describe the actors in their historical reviews, others use non-symbolic language. Some texts, especially from the Book of Daniel, are mixed cases. Among the apocalypses that use symbolic language, a limited and stable repertoire of symbols obtain across the genre and bear witness to a series of conventional associations. While several apocalypses do not use symbolic ciphers to encode their historical actors, they often use cryptic language that may have functioned as a group-specific language. The language of apocalypses indicates that these texts were not the domain of only one social group or even one type or size of social group.
- By (author) Bennie H Reynolds
Other Titles in this Series
Light Against Darkness
Dualism in Ancient Mediterranean Religion and the Contemporary World
Volume 2
Social Inequality in the World of the Text
The Significance of Ritual and Social Distinctions in the Hebrew Bible
Volume 4
Gender and Social Norms in Ancient Israel, Early Judaism and Early Christianity
Texts and Material Culture
Volume 28
Between Cooperation and Hostility
Multiple Identities in Ancient Judaism and the Interaction with Foreign Powers
Volume 11
At the Intersection of Texts and Material Finds
Stepped Pools, Stone Vessels, and Ritual Purity Among the Jews of Roman Galilee
Volume 16
Evil Within and Without
The Source of Sin and Its Nature as Portrayed in Second Temple Literature
Volume 9
Between Text and Text
International Symposium on Intertextuality in Ancient Near Eastern, Ancient Mediterranean, and Early Medieval Literatures
Volume 6
The Faces of Torah
Studies in the Texts and Contexts of Ancient Judaism in Honor of Steven Fraade
Volume 22
The Land to the Elect and Justice for All
Reading Psalms in the Dead Sea Scrolls in Light of 4Q381
Volume 14
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